"Any evidence?"
"No, nothing beyond that matter of the bill. We judged by general principles. Ainley always was something of a rotter, you know."
Stane laughed a trifle bitterly. "He's by way of becoming a personage of importance today. But I think you're right, the more so since I encountered him up here."
He gave a brief account of his meeting with Ainley, told how he had waited for him on two successive nights, and how on the second night he had been kidnapped without any apparent reason. The policeman listened carefully and at the end nodded his head.
"Looks fishy!" he commented. "The fellow was afraid of you." Then after a moment he asked, "Your question? The question you wanted to ask Ainley, I mean. What was it?"
"It was about a sheet of paper with some writing on it. You shall see it."
He felt in his hip-pocket, and producing a small letter-case, took out a thin packet wrapped in oiled silk. Opening it, he unfolded a sheet of foolscap and handed it to the other.
It was covered with writing, and as Anderton looked at it, he saw that the writing was made up of two names, written over and over again, the names being those of Hubert Stane and Eric Harcroft. At first the character of the handwriting of the two names was widely different, but presently the separate characteristics were blended with a distinct leaning towards those of Harcroft, though some of the characteristics of the earlier writing of Stane's name still survived, though at the bottom of the sheet only Harcroft's name was written, and that a dozen times. The policeman whistled as he studied it.
"Where did you get this, Stane?"
"I found it in a copy of Plato which Ainley had borrowed from me. It was returned before the forgery turned up, and that paper slipped out when I was going through my possessions after my release from Dartmoor. What do you make of it?"